


Sooner

by BackInFiveMinutes



Category: Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, MDZS, Mo Dao Zu Shi, The Founder of Diabolism, 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Genre: Also sort of graphic, Gen, kind of, sort of an alternate pathway for chapter 72, there are spoilers, when wei wuxian and wen qing go searching for wen ning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 08:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16384802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BackInFiveMinutes/pseuds/BackInFiveMinutes
Summary: Wen Ning is still alive when Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing find him, but not in great shape. Chapter 72 but with a twist.





	Sooner

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers.... I think...?  
> Wen Ning didn't deserve anything he got :(
> 
> If you liked the story, please leave a comment! I beg, comments are absolutely my biggest motivation and highly appreciated!

Wen Ning keeps his lips sealed shut as his side collides with the jagged edge of a stone slab. He doesn’t scream or beg as a boot presses the side of his face into the tiles, soaking his hair and clothes with fetid rainwater. In this position, his body is bent at an awkward angle, chest elevated above his legs where the steps slope upwards.

The pain is intolerable; he can feel it coursing through his veins like an electric current, nipping at every inch of his skin; but at least the slow process of starvation keeps his mind numb enough that it can be partially ignored. For once in anybody’s life, the lack of nourishment and rest keeps him sane, the thick fog in his mind sparing him from the worst of the punishment.

For one, he is fairly certain that not one or two of his ribs have cracked, but three. He can feel the ridges of the bones stabbing inward, pressing dangerously against the soft flesh of his lungs. His left fibula must also be broken, but he figures that with nowhere to run, this is far less important.

If Wen Ning hadn’t of been raised under the firm conduct of his older sister, he might have been pleading into the shoes of the guards, begging for a moment of respite. He might have been screaming until his throat became raw, or he might have tried to escape into the dense forest around  _Qiongqi Path._  Instead, he remains still on the dirty, dripping slabs, unsure of whether it is cowardice keeping him back, or his sister’s stern voice, reprimanding him for being unable to endure.

To endure; to face what frightens you the most. To back down because of pain – a purely temporary thing – is a weakness, is what she would say. As he lies motionless, Wen Ning isn’t sure if it will be temporary. He has been here for almost a month, and his only backbone – Wen Qing – hasn’t come for him.

His own backbone is close to shattering as a guard – this one particularly large, with an aged, sour face – slams the heel of his boot into Wen Ning’s back, further distorting his body. As a rib pokes at delicate flesh, he bites his lip with enough force to draw blood, fingers digging into the granite. Tears spill from his eyes, dripping into the muddy streams.

It’s different, he thinks, if nobody sees him cry. It’s only weakness if somebody sees.

“You Wen-dogs only resort to civil conversation when your own lives are in danger, huh? Couldn’t have talked nicely before, instead of murdering thousands?”

Of course, Wen Ning had never taken a single life in his own relatively short existence; nobody, himself in particular, would ever even consider him capable of it. It is such an abstract thought that a minuscule spark of anger flickers somewhere deep in his chest, a fleeting feeling of being insulted in the worst possible manner. 

But it is shrouded most of all by a crushing guilt that tells him that this man – who has broken three of his ribs and his leg, mutilated his face, beat him half to death and is close to snapping his spine – has all the right to be doing what he is doing.

Wen Ning has never killed, but his sect has and this is enough of a reason - at least for him - to bear much of the pain.

“Trying to tell me to what to do! So what if I force a few kids to work into the night, or make you Wen-dogs walk a few extra miles? So what if I give a few of you vermin a whipping?” The heel digs deeper into his back and finally, like a needle piercing a silk balloon, there is a sharp tearing sensation that travels in ripples throughout his body and he is acutely aware that his lung has been punctured.

_It’s only really a matter of time now._

Fresh tears roll down his cheeks and Wen Ning buries his bruised face into the ground, desperate to hold back screams of agony. His fate has been sealed and he is so close to finishing all of this without having completely shredded his pride.

Pride, which to him, is such a fruitless thing, but not to Wen Qing, who he cares very much about.

He hopes, distantly, that he has made her proud. He may not have been able to fight but he had spoken instead, choosing to use words as his weapon. Even that – from her timid, quiet and wholly useless younger brother - would have surprised her, perhaps made her glad that he had kept their principles close to heart until the very end.

But Wen Qing isn’t here and he doesn’t know where she is and he can’t seem to  _breathe_ properly.

“Jin ZiXun should have forced you all to take those spirit attraction flags before you could speak a damn word!”

In his pain and panic induced delirium, the passing of time becomes a blur, but he is suddenly aware of a lack of pressure on his lower back and a slightly-too-long pause in the guard’s tirade.

 A blissful moment of complete peace, where rather than a foot bending his spine, he feels the gentle patter of raindrops on his clothing and cheeks.

Out of the corner of his swollen eye, he can make out the grey sky, littered with equally grey clouds. Somehow, he finds solace in the drab image, taking pleasure in the lack of definitive lines and colours. He feels almost as though he is floating among those clouds, not gasping for air, about to die alone on the muddy floor in the middle of a forest, like an animal.

He is scared, he realises fleetingly.

It is strange to see everything he has ever known hanging on the edge of a precipice. And although truthfully, Wen Ning’s cautious nature has kept him from knowing much, it only serves to heighten his sudden appreciation for everything that he  _does_  know.

_But even stranger…_

_“A-… -ing!”_

_“A-Ning, where…you!? A-Ning!”_

_“Wen Ning, where are you!?”_

The voice is shrill, frantic. Familiar.

But in his state, Wen Ning is unable to form the connection in his mind. Between this tearful voice and its owner; between real and unreal. Still, with a brief spurt of effort, he rolls onto his back, the full force of the rain pelting down onto his face, drenching his hair.

“ _I saw… move… must be…_ ”

There is a flurry of movement in the corner of his eye, a figure – two figures – obscured by the heavy rain, pressed into some separate sphere of existence between this world and the next.

He used to wonder if he could talk to ghosts and if the ghosts might listen. His sister had scoffed at the idea and wouldn’t let him near any instance of a fierce spirit for the whole month, afraid that he would attempt to converse with it and get himself shredded. But Wen Ning decides that it seems like a good time to try, seeing as he will likely be joining the ghosts soon anyway.

“Jiějiě…”

“ _… Wen Ning_?”

This voice is contrasting, deep and grounded. Different, just like the other voice, but he recognises it distantly just as he had the first. This is a male voice, somehow frightening but simultaneously soothing.

“ _Oh my god, A-Ning, oh god…what did they do to you…_ ”

The sobbing that follows is uncomfortably real and although a shrinking violet when physical contact is involved, Wen Ning has the urge to reach out and comfort whoever is crying so hard that it sounds  _painful._ His arms, however, refuse to move and stay limp by his side.

Then, the deeper voice sweeps over the broken sobs, radiating a startling calamity, “ _his lung. Ruptured. We need to stop the bleeding. Careful with his leg_.”

“ _Yes… of course, why didn’t I- …_ A-Ning _, A-Ning wake up!_ ”

“ _It’s me, Wen Qing. It’s your big sister!_ ”

 

_Wen Qing?_

As though he had been floating in a vacuum, the air is suddenly sucked out of his surroundings. Everything remains a lacklustre shade of grey, his clothes are still drenched and his face dripping blood, but a relief so heavy rises up in his throat that he almost chokes.

He can’t believe the view through his swollen eyes, finds it hard to process that what he is seeing may not, in fact, be an apparition. He wants to believe it of course, but it is far easier said than done.

Wen Qing’s face is soaked with tears, or most likely, rainwater. Looking at her face over the blue glow where her spiritual energy slowly seeps into his chest is almost like looking at his reflection. A stronger, wilful version of himself.

He melts into the sight, warm tears dripping down his cheeks.

Standing over his sister is a taller man, his narrowed eyes idling over the now blackly silent detention camp, stock-still in the silvery, rolling landscape. When Wen Ning’s eyes next focus, the man is looking over him with something akin to sadness, his lips turned downward in displeasure. But when he notices the smaller man’s bleary gaze, a warm smile appears on his face and Wen Ning has a sudden revelation.

**Author's Note:**

> Please support this story on my tumblr! I may post following chapters there: http://lovelyleftwombat.tumblr.com/post/179250374818/if-they-had-gotten-there-sooner-sort-of


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